1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multimedia information add-on system capable of adding multimedia information such as static images, animation, voice, etc. to alphabetic and numeric information system when the information is displayed on a display unit.
The present invention generates defined information for each of screen information, layout information, and media information in response to an operator's entry when an environment is defined, monitors using a screen monitoring unit a change in predetermined position information during the actual operation, extracts a character string to be displayed with media information according to the contents of the defined information if a change in the information has been detected, obtains media information corresponding to the character string, that is, the name of layout to be used and actual media information to be displayed within a display frame, obtains the position and size of a frame and the display format of the media, each depending on the name of layout to be used, and displays media information corresponding to the character string to be displayed with the media information. Thus, character string information can be displayed with multimedia information added together only by mounting or installing the multimedia information add-on system without restructuring an existing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Normally, alphabetic and numeric information (hereinafter referred to as a "character string") is used as common display information among the information displayed on the screen of a computer system. However, it has become possible to display a character string with multimedia information such as a static image, animation, voice, text, etc. with the increasing use of high-performance hardware at a lower cost. Accordingly, character strings have been displayed with the multimedia information in various fields of applications.
Conventionally, only a small precentage of personal computers and terminal units can process multimedia information. Actually, very few office computer systems having a host computer have the function of processing the multimedia information.
Actually, most office computer systems, etc. have not been provided with multimedia information add-on systems because they are designed to process character strings as their primary function. Therefore, a system can be modified to include a multimedia system only by greatly reorganizing a main system and the configuration of the entire system including a communications unit, etc. Furthermore, if conventional systems designed mainly to process alphabetic and numeric information are reconfigured to be multimedia information displaying systems, then a program for displaying each type of media information is required, and an operator's instruction is required to display each type of media information, thereby causing operational problems. Furthermore, if a plurality of types of media information are to be displayed, operational deterioration occurs due to the increase in number of operator's instructions. Additionally, no restrictions placed on display positions cause the problem that a display screen often becomes undesirably complicated.